Attorney General Bill Barr _ who magically turned a detailed and damning report on a two-year investigation by special counsel Bob Mueller into a cursory brief exonerating President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice _ is deeply disingenuous in claiming that Mueller "could've reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity" on obstruction of justice.
Oh? Throughout this process, Mueller remained the model of reticence and sober judgment, despite scurrilous tweets that he was engaged in a "witch hunt." Wednesday, he explained how he scrupulously followed DOJ policy by neither indicting a sitting president nor asserting criminal behavior which could not be adjudicated _ while honestly saying that he couldn't definitively assert no criminal actions occurred.
Had Mueller played judge and jury, asserting, "Yes, President Trump committed obstruction, but he can't be indicted, because of DOJ policy," he would've been drawn, quartered and served to sharks released into the Potomac.
Barr, meanwhile, told Congress on May 1: "We accepted the special counsel's legal framework for purposes of our analysis ... in reaching our conclusion." Friday, he flipped: "We didn't agree with...a lot of the legal analysis in the report...So we applied what we thought was the right law."
Mueller has been consistent and professional from the start. Barr's been the opposite: arbitrary in word and deed _ consistent only in the political defense of one Donald J. Trump.
